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#11
@Kyhi, maybe?
UNBELIEVABLY --- it's because I had the motherboard driver disc in the DVD drive!!
Reference: Unable to install Windows : techsupport
Thank you for your assistance, I'm going to try a "stock" clean install of Windows 10 now with the disc removed - it's odd as Windows 7 actually requires the disc in the drive during install!
Have you tried making sure, there is no disc in DVD drive? It seems, it works for many.
Windows 10 install error "Windows Setup could not install one or more boot-critical drivers." - YouTube
The other option would be to disconnect all devices and keep only HDD connected.
What an odd issue .... but it solved one problem. A "virgin" install from using Rufus still just goes to a purple/blue blank screen.
The other thing I can't figure out is that the Media Creation Tool ... never finds any USB devices despite being present and working!
Would the reason that it wouldn't allow me to boot from a "virgin" install be anything to do with the fact the disks I have in aren't GPT?
You can convert the internal hard drive/SSD to GPT before the install, but that won't stop you at where you are at now. Windows installer will complain about the drives not being GPT later on in the install process. Is the USB flash drive you are trying to boot from formatted as FAT32?
I've tried the USB drive as both fat32 and ntfs.